In My Father's Country (15 page)

A typical relationship between the U.S. Army and an Afghan official plays out something like this: Most likely, the subgovernor was appointed because he was the governor’s crony. He knows little, if anything, about how to govern. He might not even know what’s going on in his own district. The company commander who’s supposed to teach him his job has had little, if any, training in governance in the United States, let alone governance in a foreign culture such as Afghanistan. He doesn’t know the first thing about running an Afghan province and probably knows even less about Islam, which is heavily intertwined with the Afghan constitution as far as the villagers are concerned.

Still, the company commander tries to set up a meeting. It’s the first step. The subgovernor hems and haws, makes excuses. He tells the company commander that he has to go to the doctor in Kabul. He says one of his relatives has died. Most often, it is a female relative, because how would an American company commander be able to confirm this? How would the commander know how many female relatives the subgovernor has? How would
anyone
know?

He’s full of excuses for why it will be difficult to meet. He knows the Americans are supposed to help, but he doesn’t want a meeting. It’s not safe. Most of the people in his province don’t know who their subgovernor is. They don’t care. If he hosts a meeting with the Americans, word will get out. Gossip will spread. Within hours the insurgents will know his name. Anyone connected with the Afghan government, anyone connected with promoting their cause, will become a target. If and when he finally agrees to meet, he knows he is putting a bull’s-eye on his own back. The subgovernor, while he might be uneducated, is not stupid. Even though he is a marked man, he knows that the more ineffectual he is, the longer he will live. His goal becomes not governance but doing as little as possible for as long as possible to avoid assassination while continuing to receive a nice paycheck, plus all the potential bribes—an unadvertised bonus of most official positions in Afghanistan.

The subgovernor’s refusing to be seen out connecting with the constituents of his district but still fighting opponents for the seat might land this subgovernor on a satirical news program like
The Daily Show
back in the States, but in Afghanistan it is the root of all that has gone wrong the last decade. Enter into this mess a U.S. PRT, whose purpose is to connect the Afghans to this ineffectual and corrupt subgovernor. In the mind of the average Afghan, this has created a fundamental, deep-seated distrust of Americans. However simple they may seem to people of the first world, the villagers know what’s going on in their own country. Why wouldn’t they doubt the United States’ good intentions when the United States is encouraging the Afghans to connect with a government that’s stupendously incompetent and equally corrupt?

AFTER A FEW
weeks, when it became clear that my suitcase wasn’t going to be catching up with me anytime soon, I asked the PRT acting commander whether I could go outside the wire to the local bazaar and buy some things I needed. This was a normal enough request in March 2005. The country, newly purged of Taliban, was safer than ever.

Major Carrillo, the tall and handsome Hispanic deputy commanding officer (DCO), flashed me a white-toothed grin and said, “Sounds like you’re feeling adventurous, Saima. We should make it a mission, to get out there and meet some of the locals, too.”

The next morning I set out for the Farah bazaar with a dozen soldiers and two CAT I interpreters, named Omar and Johnny Cash. For personal security reasons, most CAT I and II interpreters don’t use their real names. A code name does double duty: It prevents anyone from tracking their names back to their family, which would make them a target for insurgents, and it makes it easier for American soldiers (who often have a hard time with foreign names) to remember them. Later, I, too, would have a code name, but in those early weeks back in Afghanistan I used my real name.

The soldiers all wore desert camouflage (a shade of beige that matched the endless sand and every hut and wall constructed of it), interceptor body armor (IBA), heavy boots, helmets, sunglasses, and several radios for communicating with the PRT and one another. I wore a green, vaguely Afghan-looking tunic I had designed and sewn at home and a pair of jeans. I was thrilled to emerge and have the opportunity to engage with Afghans. By midmorning it was warm, verging on hot. Winter was on its way out. I felt the sun on my scalp as we stood by the convoy for the brief before leaving the wire.

As we drove out of the Entry Control Point (ECP) and into the bazaar a couple of miles away, I noticed little kids running alongside the HMMWV (Humvee) screaming something. It was hard for me to understand them at first, but as more voices joined in, I was able to hear what they were saying, and it warmed my heart. “I love you! I love you!” they
screamed. I felt as if all my fears about being judged by Afghans were silly. See? They loved me, and loved all of us. I can do this, I thought. I will be very good at what I am here to do, because how could I let these children down?

The Farah bazaar was a sleepy huddle of narrow shops selling more or less the same items: groceries, shampoo, shoes, and fabric. The stalls were crowded beneath an overhang of corrugated metal, protecting the goods from the sun. A few shopkeepers wandered over, and a group of adorable little kids chased us, calling out, “Pen, mister! Pen, mister!” I felt a swell of pride that these Afghan children were begging us for pens and not chewing gum or candy, like my little cousins did back in the States. They were just so interested in educating themselves, I naïvely thought.

I don’t know what the shopkeepers were thinking, but I could see the stunned looks on their faces when I asked them in Pashtu if they had shampoo. Over the years I had picked up little accents from Jalalabad, Peshawar, Kandahar, and of course my own Ghazni Pashtu, and I was using all four of those to make sure no one could pinpoint where I was from. This was a trick I had decided to use to make sure that no one harassed my family in Afghanistan because of what I was doing. Just as I spoke to the Afghans around me, I turned and spoke to the soldiers in English. The locals had seen female soldiers, but I wasn’t in uniform. Was I some sort of special guest? An ambassador, perhaps? The shopkeepers ducked their heads and grinned. One wondered aloud, in Pashtu, for the enjoyment of the growing crowd, “Is she Afghan? No, I think she is American. Listen to her speaking English to those American guys. She is not shy at all, and they are all listening to her and laughing with her like she is one of them.”

I picked up a dusty bottle of hot pink shampoo and asked the price. The shopkeeper blinked at me from beneath his gray turban.

“I think ten dollars,” he said.

“Ten dollars? That can’t be right.” The inborn bargainer in me was waking up. In the States, I had missed being able to bargain for shampoo.

“But it’s rose shampoo,” he said.

“Sure, it’s pink, but that doesn’t mean it’s rose. It could be bubble gum. Or it could just be pink, because I can’t smell any rose or bubble gum.”

“But you are a rich American. You are supposed to help Afghans. Just do your part, daughter, and buy the shampoo.”

A tall, thin boy stepped forward from the crowd. He wore a long, dusty green shirt and the traditional loose pants. He placed his hand on my arm.

“What are you doing?” I asked in Pashtu.

“Where did you learn Pashtu?”

“Where did
you
learn Pashtu?” I countered.

“I learned it from my mother,” he said.

“That’s funny; I learned it from my mother, too!” I said.

The boy groaned and rolled his eyes, unimpressed. Another boy asked whether I’d taken a class, and if so, could he take a class and speak English, too? I felt so relaxed and at home with these kids. They were too young to judge me on how many Pashtun gender customs I was breaking, too young to try to ascertain exactly why I was there. Their eyes were bright with curiosity. They were beautiful and silly. I felt a bit sad knowing how different they would be in just a few years, as sullen, angry Afghan teenagers, old enough to know how impossible and miserable their lives were.

The soldiers providing security weren’t too comfortable standing around in the middle of the bazaar. They seemed to grow anxious if we stayed in one place for too long. I could tell by the way they scanned the hardpan dirt street that fronted the shops. They suggested we get going. As our Humvees rolled back to the PRT, I felt good about the day. I was in Afghanistan, connecting with real Afghans; no one gazed at me with murder in his eyes. And I had done my expected American duty by buying the expensive shampoo (even at the agreed-upon $3), and helping the local shopkeeper.

The next morning as I headed to the chow hall for breakfast, Major
Carrillo caught up with me. He’d spoken to the governor about me, and it had been decided that I would be the perfect person to represent Farah PRT at the upcoming celebration in honor of International Women’s Day.

“It’s a party?” I asked. I had never heard of International Women’s Day.

“Yes, a party,” he said. “But first you’ll give a little speech.”

“I don’t think I can do that. How about you give the speech and I’ll interpret?”

It turned out I didn’t have much say in the matter. I wasn’t army, so they couldn’t order me to stand up and tell them what it was like to be an Afghan American woman, but they did impress upon me how thrilled and honored they were to be able to send to the celebration a genuine Pashtun,
and
a female, a native speaker who could address the local people in their own language.

Major Carrillo assured me it would be a small gathering of local women and that I would only have to say a few words. I thought that if I could just imagine I was chatting to Mamai and a few cousins, it wouldn’t be so bad. It might even be fun. I could talk about how I had learned English by watching Peter Jennings on the nightly news, and what it had been like to go to college. And how many women could they get together for this party, anyway? Couldn’t be more than a dozen, I assumed.

The next day I went to the center for the Department of Women’s Affairs at the appointed time. The weather had turned cold, even though the sun shone, and the celebration was held in the courtyard outside. There was a small wooden podium in front of a row of plastic chairs, where I was told to sit once the event started, beside the director of the department. Mrs. Sadiqqi was a kind Farsiban woman who’d just returned from Iran, where she had been a refugee for many years. Several principals and teachers from the local schools sat nearby.

Directly in front of the podium were a few rows of chairs for the token women. It was, after all, International Women’s Day. They wore big black burqas that made them look like birds of prey. On either side of the
women were rows and rows of men, sitting there looking dull-eyed and resentful beneath their turbans. I had not seen this coming; the men would also be listening to my speech. I asked the member of Civil Affairs who’d accompanied me what the men were doing there, and she said she thought they were guests of the governor.

I laughed. Of course. In the same way I was pressed to be here against my will, these men were forced to be there by the governor, who wanted to show the Americans, who had paid for the party, that he was interested in promoting gender equality.

Here was my fear, realized. Now I would be put on display to be judged and despised by my father’s people. I could see their judgments in their eyes. “The most heinous thing that could ever happen to a Pashtun woman has happened, and there it is in front of us.” I was a living nightmare. I was corrupt, a Pashtun woman gone bad, and here I was about to speak to their women in public. If a woman from a respected family even speaks to a woman of loose morals, she will bring shame to her family. In a few minutes, I would be talking to all these respected women from respected families, and I knew that the men were not happy about it. I felt in danger and was glad that the soldiers were there in case any of the men took it upon themselves to perform an honor killing. It was a strange feeling, to be afraid of the Afghan men but comforted by the presence of the American men. I felt so conflicted. I was wearing a tunic and jeans but no scarf. I hoped they would see a new kind of Afghan woman, one who could be modest and respect tradition without having to wear a scarf, one who could also speak English without causing dishonor.

I kept my distance from the men. They likely thought that since my head was uncovered, they could approach me. As I stood around trying to mingle before the speeches, some of the younger men started coming my way, so I turned away and walked toward the other women, not wanting the men to think they could approach me just because I wasn’t covered head to toe. Many of the women glared at me. They were hostile, embarrassed both for themselves and for me. But I was determined. I wanted to show that just because my head was bare, that didn’t mean
I was a woman without morals. I wanted to convey to them that in my adopted culture modesty was communicated by how we behaved, and by how we allowed others to treat us, not just by the thickness of the fabric of our
hijabs
, head coverings.

When it was my turn to speak, I stood up, legs shaking. As a young girl in Afghanistan and then Pakistan, I used to stutter when I was in front of people I didn’t know. My stammer eventually disappeared, but I still fear it will suddenly return when I am about to address a large group. It doesn’t help that my mother still reminds me of how I used to be tongue-tied, except she says it in a wishful way, like she wishes I would stop arguing with her. On that occasion I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to say what everyone was waiting to hear. I have no idea what came out—I just remember thinking, What am I doing up here? I’m just an interpreter. I didn’t stutter. At the end I was given a bouquet of gaudy plastic flowers, sprinkled with glitter and scented with sickly sweet perfume, and a scarf.

I joked about the scarf. I said, “I guess you’re trying to tell me something.”